Windows can’t normally read Mac-formatted drives, and will offer to erase them instead. Read our affiliate link policy for more details. Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Mac 911 cannot reply to email with troubleshooting advice nor can we publish answers to every question. We’re always looking for problems to solve! Email yours to including screen captures as appropriate. For supported software, Paragon’s ExtFS for Windows Professional ($20, works up through Windows 10) will do the trick. It’s also an unsupported project-there’s no one to complain to about crashes or data failures.

While ext3 can’t be mounted directly in Windows, you can turn to the free Ext2Fsd Project, which isn’t yet compatible with Windows 10 at this writing. Topher Kessler wrote in Macworld in December 2014 about using FUSE to extend which formats a Mac can read and write, including the common Linux format ext3. However, you might choose instead a format you can use easily with OS X, Windows, and Linux. A drive formatted in this fashion can be swapped between a Mac and Windows PC. Or, as long as you’re using Windows 7 or later with a 64-bit PC, you can pick both ExFAT, a replacement that handles much larger files (4GB and larger), and GUID Partition Map. If you’re starting from scratch, you can initialize a drive as MS-DOS (FAT)-better known as FAT32-which is readable up to Windows XP with the Master Boot Record scheme. HFSExplorer for Windows is free and updated for Windows 10, but requires the installation of the Java 5 or later runtime environment (JRE), which can introduce security issues unless you configure it carefully.įor Ubuntu users and those with Unix or Linux distributions that can support hfsprogs, you can turn to a detailed thread at Ask Ubuntu for advice on mounting in read-only mode or, with some additional effort, as read/write. Paragon is a long-time developer of cross-platform Mac/Windows disk mounting software, and its HFS+ for Windows 10 works on Windows releases all the way back to XP and Windows Server 2003 all the way through the present Windows 10 release. The trouble is that the drive is already formatted-this limits options, but it’s neither expensive nor impossible to proceed. But the problem is I can’t access this HDD from my PC which has Windows and Linux. I bought a new external HDD for my mac about a month ago and formatted it to Mac OS X Extended Journaled. Rakesh Shewale writes with a common question about formatting compatibility: These drivers will mount your Mac hard drives in Windows Explorer and give you read access (but no write access). Among other things, Boot Camp includes built-in HFS+ drivers for Windows. It allows Windows to read Linux file systems natively, providing access to the file system via a drive letter that any program can access.Īpple's Boot Camp software is designed to help you run Windows on real Macs. Ext2Fsd is a Windows file system driver for the Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems.Explore more about: File System, Hard Drive, USB Drive. Read More to erase the Mac partition and create a new partition. If read access to the files is all you need, you can install the Apple HFS+ drivers for Windows.

We show you how to access your Mac-formatted drive on Windows.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac.

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Mac Partition Reader For Windows Average ratng: 4,3/5 5494 reviews

Format external hdd for mac and windows